Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Myhill, Nova
Area of Concentration
English
Abstract
In this thesis, I consider the ways in which two novels of speculative fiction, Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin and Pym by Mat Johnson, manipulate the historical materiality of racial allegory. The protagonists of each novel seek to diagnose etiologies and treat pathologies of Whiteness that manifest at once in the fictional world of the novels and in the world of the producers of the fiction. Individuals and institutions of power in both reality and these fantastic novels propagate mythologized worldviews, based in historical fact but transmuted into allegories suiting the maintenance of their power. Yeine, Jemisin’s protagonist, does this by literally becoming a goddess and altering physical components of the world to revise its constitutive symbology. Chris, Johnson’s protagonist, journeys through various bizarre manifestations of the utopian impulse, defining and deflating their flawed versions of idealism. Instead he favors of an eschatology of redemption that he characterizes as existence beyond the dissolution of racial myth. Their methods of reading and re-deploying the allegorical structures of myth model a writing practice that emphasizes the aspirational mode as an ur-form of speculative fiction.
Recommended Citation
Leach, Ross, "“HOW NOT TO SMASH PLANETS BY ACCIDENT”: ALLEGORY, HISTORY, AND THE ASPIRATIONS OF FANTASY" (2018). Theses & ETDs. 5551.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5551